Yesterday, a neighbor's wife killed her husband by shooting him in the face while he was sleeping and then calling the police; she was sitting on the porch when the cops got there. These folks lived immediately across the street, and the last murder in the town was about 25 years ago. Their son was born two days after my brother's third son and the two have been friends almost literally since the day they were born. She was taken to the county jail and booked with first degree murder, bond at $1,000,000. No motive yet, but they had been married 32 years.

My brother, a Vietnam combat vet, was upset about it. He's a former city councilman, a former school board member, and retired from the Illinois State Police. You just don't go shooting your husband in the face when he's asleep and then call the cops in A****s, Illinois! Too few people in town as it is!

's okay, gnu. The small arms in Canada are now produced by Colt Canada, a subsidiary of Colt firearms. Canada hasn't produced a quality military rifle. Here's what is said about the Ross Rifle:

[The deficiencies of the Ross] rifles were made apparent during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. The rifle showed poor tolerance of dirt when used in field conditions, particularly the screw threads operating the bolt lugs, jamming the weapon open or closed. Another part of the jamming problem came from the bolt's outer face hitting the bolt stop, then deforming the thread shape. The bolt could also be disassembled for routine cleaning and inadvertently reassembled in a manner that would fail to lock but still allow a round to be fired, leading to serious injury or death of the operator as the bolt flew back into into his face. Another well-known deficiency was the tendency for the bayonet to fall off the rifle when the weapon was fired.

"Well, dang! My bayonet just fell off, eh?" "Probably should have seen the doctor after seeing that young lady, Sam."

[rubs hands together] Eggplant and chicken Parmesan season is here - the garden is producing and I'll make some to put in the freezer for individual meals, and a couple of larger casseroles for when company comes over. MOM loves that with a plate of spaghetti and a glass of red wine.

I don't eat cereal. Haven't since I was about 12 years old. Sometimes I'll have a bowl of hot oatmeal, but my usual breakfast is quiche Lorraine, sausage patties, a banana, and a large glass of iced tea. That provides fruit, a bread-like substance, protein, healthy fats, cheese, onions, bacon, caffeine. There is also milk in the quiche. Fruit, cereal, milk, bread, and butter, just like Mr. Wizard said.

Worse than reporting life on the moon? Or the petrified man? Or solar armor? Or the girl who got pregnant by a bullet? Or G. Washington's 161 year old nurse? Or the gold hoax of the US Civil War that messed up the stock market? Or the rush to judgement on the USS Maine that led to the Spanish-American War? Or Madoff? Or Ponzi? Or the Hitler diaries? Tsk, tsk, Amos. If I hadn't seen you personally in the flesh (so to speak) I'd think you might be a hoax.

Did you hear about the tool that can be used to chop trees and to grub up the ground? No, it's not a hoe-ax, it's called a pulaski -- after the guy who made the first one and they've dug many miles of fire line.

Ooooohhh, THAT'S gonna leave a mark. When is my referral to the eye surgeon gonna get answered? I used to be able to see in near darkness. Now, if the light is not on in a room... MARKS on my shins! Cataracts? Cata-wracks!

Call 'em an tell 'em you're hurting yourself because of your vision problems. Tell 'em that you fear leaving the house at night or moving around in the dark even with a flashlight because you fear that you'll injure yourself and not be able to summon help. Then threaten to sic Harper on 'em -- THAT'LL get 'em moving, eh?

You guys are all bingeing on old episodes of Mr. Wizard and forgot to check on MOM! Now she knows how to use a pulaski, and might just chase you around the house with one next time you leave her along for so long. She nearly fell off the bottom of the page.

Geez, I gave her a new bottle of Old Panther Pith just this morning. You know, the stuff she likes -- half grain alcohol, half Missouri River water, with a plug of tobacco, a tablespoon of strychnine, and a cup of dried habenero peppers in it.

Amos, you know that recipe comes from her girlhood, when all innocence and golden locks and pure white smock she had her Fatal Drink. She has spoken often enough of how, smiling with the joy of unsullied youth, she tripped gleefully to the dance and how, late in the evening (or early in the morning) her dance partner brought her the glass of lemonade with the so-called whiskey in it and how, after her will had been weakened by strong drink the cad tried to steal a kiss from her unwilling lips. Oft has she spoken of how she fended off his unwelcome advances, crying for help from the others present, and how she was finally trapped in the hayloft and would have had her maiden lips ravished and her youthful exuberance stolen had she not happend to have in her apron pocket the brass knuckles her father, Khandu, had given her on her 500th postday. We know she fled the now unconscious villians advances, but only after stomping him and kicking him out of the hayloft, and ran to the Convent of the Sisters of the Divine Figure where she devoted the rest of youth to prayer and good works. You should know that that one single taste of the Devil's drink brought her to enjoy lemonade even today, and how oft she has warned us against the Primrose Path to Perdition...if anyone should.

Perdition, indeed, Mister R.; I believe it holds a special place in reserve for spinners of such draughty and towering tales! But nevertheless, I am only human and must stand in awe of your literary sparks of genius,the like of which has been unknown since the passing of William Topaz McGonagal.

No, I was face-to-face with Kendall. YOU were facing Dani, not that I blame you. I suspect that your memory is shattered like a crystal goblet dropped from the Perrine Bridge onto the rocks below. A shame, truly, and to paraphrase Sam Clemens, "Here a lonely mind busted."

There a some great advances being made in the treatment of your condition; I only hope that you're not too far gone when they become available.

Humana Advantage. I got it through the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, but we have to make another choice (or stick with the same) next month. OPERS is gonna pay for me but not completely for Pat; the money is going into an HRA and then out for the premiums on whatever we chose for tax reasons. It's been a good insurance -- Pat's "incident" last year was billed at around $110,000 and our out of pocket was about 1% of that.

I get some stuff through the VA -- meds, mostly -- but since the closest two hospitals are each about 250+ miles away I'd be crazy to use them for checkups, etc.* We do have a Community-Based Outpatient Clinic here which can do some mental health, checkups, basic pharmacy, and so on and I do use that when it's needed. There is also VA Choice, which means that if you live more than 40 road miles from a health care facility you can get permission to use a local provider. However, that means that since our local clinic can't do an audiology check such as I needed this year I was going to have to go to Salt Lake City; fortunately I convinced them to let me use a local provider. I have a friend who is 60% disabled and pregnant, due around Hallowe'en and the VA graciously has allowed her to do everything locally and the VA will pay, including things like a breast pump (but not a college education or such, because I asked when she said the VA "was paying for everything").

*Perhaps for something like a heart transplant, yes, and yes, the VA would do that for me. They can also provide "inpatient" psychiatric care.

Nice. Is that someone who's happy or someone who's fallen into a pit of quicksand and only their head is still above the surface? ^^ I've tried that stuff but only came up with @@ which is nothing much. \/

I was hoping to finally make it to the Getaway, but it became too complicated this year. It will be a goal for next year, when there isn't a big social event happening so near to the same time. Are any of you going this year?

I've had to pass again this year. Too much work being done on the house right now. E.g., four 10-foot columns in the front have to be replaced (they're wooden, with rot) and whilst I can do many things we're hiring THAT out! Pat will be in Blighty, fabric show the Victoria and Albert, so I get to ensure that the pillars are properly placed.

I leave for the Getaway tomorrow night, via visits in North Carolina and DC. I don't know what the case will be in future years, but this year Ima gwine.

Actually I have been agwine for along time, and am descended from a long, long line of gwines. Many of the gwines in my ancestral tree have been involved with major historical figures and incidents, such as the bombing of the Parsley Grade School boy's room plumbing and the discovery of cannabis in the new world. It wasn't really a new world, but it was really cannabis. Which made it look new.

So I have a lot of respect and affinity for those who have the courage to say "I'm agwine". These are the folks who make the world go around in various dimensions.

Gwyn, Amos. You misspelled. Obviously then you are descended from Nell Gwyn, who often descended for Charles II of England. You're "a Gwyn" and not "agwine." "Agwine" is an old, old Anglo-Saxon verb meaning, well, it's a series of actions involving grease, a wine butt, several sheep, leather, and linked body piercings. "Agwine" is against the law in 200 countries of the world, and is always and everywhere punishable by "death with extreme malice." You don't want to be an agwinist.

I didn't say I was an agwinist, silly Bookmanne. I said I was a gwine, which is an entirely different word from an entirely different root, viz., Indo-European gjinn, noun, "an act of heroism or accomplishment of such magnitude as to appear mystic or magical in its origins". I come from a long line of such acts.

Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs is an exercise in futility, mon vieux.

Of all the money that e'er I had I've spent it in good company And all the harm that e'er I've done Alas it was to none but me And all I've done for want of wit To memory now I can't recall So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all

Citations not required. If you don't know it.... bite me. Good night and joy be with you all.

OH! Yesterday was horrible! The fuckers who changed out Mum's oil tank? One was no bigger than a minute and the other gut was about 60. In order to get the ol tank up the basement stairs, they cut the tank in two with a Sawz-all. I was next door and it was FUCKIN LOUD at my house. I raced over. Mum was in hysterics trying to get her shoes on to get out of the house... scared to damn near death. I flicked the basement stairs light on an off rapidly and asked him to wait until I got Mum out of the house. Got her into my house, shut my windows... took a half to get her calmed and stop crying. There will be a Letter to the Editor about this suggesting that people enquire about the cutting of old tanks in their home before hiring a company to change out a tank.

I hope like hell the tank was empty when they started cutting on it! Probably was, but you can never tell about some people.

Amos, I apologize for mistaking "a gwine" for "agwine." Obviously you have a later dictionary than I. I wish, however, point out that gwine is a wine cellar management program written in perl, and for information on "a" I refer you to the repetition section at perdocs.perl.org.

On further investigation, however, I found that the expression "a gwine" in Old Meänkieli (Enontekiö dialect) refers to "the heroic though solitary copulatory acts of the [now extinct] Arctic warthog when stranded on a melting bit of an iceberg." I thought you'd want to know.

Ah, farewell, farewell, my bags are packed And I must go away I leave for far-off lands, my loves, Where the wilding banjos play. Where voices are no strangers And every voice has song And all the hours are enjoyed And nothing lasts too long. And so farewell, for I am agwine To make my fingers play Beyond the snowcapped Rockies To the East Coast Getaway!

Would that I could go! I had hoped to, but circumstances and four porch columns that need replacing dictated that, alas!, I could not.

But what do I care? Getaway is nought but a weekend of drinking, brawling, wenching, singing, music, late nights, and all of those things that folk singers and their ilk are known for. There will almost certainly be the Annual Police Raid where tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, water cannon, and flash-bangs will be used to break up the uncouth clots of card carrying conservatives, liberals, and mugwumps.

Once again, Mother will be forced to spend her butter and egg money to bail out Amos. He will promise never again to de-pants a policeman, and next year everything will happen all over again.

I would like to see it, but there are houses and lights and trees east of me and it's too late to go somewhere else. Moonrise isn't for a bit yet anyway.

You all HAVE heard that there are some folks who believe that this is The End Of Days and that by morning we'll all be raptured? Or not, as the case may be. Personally I think that a giant coyote is going to eat the Moon, get sick to its little tummy, and throw it back up. This is actually part of the belief system of the Idaho Legion but you aren't required to subscribe to all of it because some of it's just plain silly.

Amos believes that the Earth is supported on the back of a giant turtle, which is on the back of another turtle, which is on the back of another turtle...in fact, it's turtles all the way down.

Kindly allow this humble person who slept through the eclipse to assist Mom in arising from her eclipse-gazing hammock.

I never get to git to the Getaway, so at least I can be useful though not decorative. I'm more in the semblance of seawrack than catawracks, though I am overly familiar with them there things in a second hand- errr, second sight- no-lessee... I know about them things.